‘If we’re going to the Hiperdino, we need Bimbo, Skip and Tulipan’, I replied. It’s amazing how quickly we’ve absorbed Spanish brand names into our lives. The Hiperdino is a chain of supermarkets. Bimbo is a brand of bread, Skip is a washing powder and Tulipan (Spanish for tulip) is a low fat spread.

There are some useful words and amusing pronunciations. The Spanish pronounce the chocolate spread Nutella as ’nut-ay-er’. If you need a soft drink you can ask for ‘cola lite’ which is diet coke or Fanta limon which is lemon Fanta, a fizzy lemon drink or Fanta naranja which is orange Fanta. The Spanish call gin and tonic, a ‘gin tonica’ although the Spanish for gin is ‘ginebra’. An orange juice is a ‘zumo de naranjas’ which will get you a bottled orange juice. For slightly more money and well worth the difference, try fresh orange juice - ‘zumo de naranjas natural’.

We have Italian neighbours from Bologna in Italy who told us that there is no such dish as spaghetti Bolognese. They never eat pasta with a meat and tomato sauce! It’s a made-up dish, a bit like chicken tandoori or chop suey which don’t actually exist in their native countries. But if you’re in Italy and fancy a trifle, the Italian is ‘zuppa inglese’, literally English soup!

In Spain, a crème caramel is called a ‘flan’! The biggest brand of crisps is called Lays but you can also ask for Pringles. This is one of my favourites as they pronounce them like the Spanish word for English – ‘inglés’ and just add the ‘pr’ sound. They become ‘Prin – gles’ with stress on the second syllable.

In the same way, the Spanish put stresses on a different syllable in other names so there is an area in Playa Banca called Shangri La is said to sound like ‘shan – griller’, with the emphasis on the griller!

Some English words are used in interesting ways. In the Hiperdino you can find something called ‘queque’ – which is pronounced ‘cek’ and is actually a cake!